See my vest, see my vest!

Yesterday I expanded by knitting shopping horizons and went to the Downtown Knit Collective's annual Knitters' Frolic in Toronto.  The Guild organized a bus to the Frolic, and for ten measly dollars, I sat in comfort on a big yellow school bus and chatted and knitted while someone else worried about driving and parking (shout outs to Dee-Anne for being a rockin' chauffeur!).  I've been to the local Knitters' Fair a number of times, and it was at the Fair that I first learned about the Guild.  I've been part of the planning committee for the Fair for the last two years, and part of the reason I wanted to check out the Frolic was to compare notes and see if we could be doing things any differently/better. 

Let's start with what I bought:

I finally own a yarn bowl!  I've been seeing these at every fair and festival and yesterday I took the plunge and bought one.  This little beauty came from a vendor from Quebec, called Sheppard Handmade.  I toured the whole Frolic before coming back to buy my pottery here.  Her stuff was the best by far.  I especially like that the notch for your yarn is SMOOTH.  Every time I've seen other yarn bowls, if you run your finger along the notch it's all catchy and grabby, and the exact opposite of what you would want for your yarn.  Kudos Sheppard Handmade!

 

Look how cute it is!

She also makes ceramic buttons, so I search through the piles and found 6 relatively small buttons for my finished paulie cardigan.  I sewed them on when I got home, and now my sweater is officially complete.  Ps. I love moo cards for tags on yarn and knitting notions, don't you?

My favourite project bag maker, Zig Zag Stitches.  The robots make me think of Fuzzyhead, so I've decided this project bag will be for boy projects, like boy socks.  Which leads me to...

The TARDIS yarn from indigodragonfly!  Fuzzyhead and I watch Dr. Who on a regular basis and I thought this would add some much-needed colour to his handmade sock collection.

Yarn bowl in action, securing Maeva from rolling around all over the place.

I didn't buy a whole lot, since I haven't gone through the stuff I already have in my stash, and I have big, exciting plans for it.  I brought $200 cash to the Frolic, and I still have $65 left over.  I did real good!

I liked the Frolic a lot over all, they had a great selection of vendors, including some I had never seen before at the Fair.  The venue was really nice too, it was held at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, which was pretty and open and easy to navigate.  The vendors were mostly set up through different rooms on the main floor, with a small strip of vendors upstairs (only about 5 in total, which makes me think they were last-minute additions).  They also had fantastic food options - the Knit Cafe handled all the food service, and I loved the sandwiches Catherine and I shared.  Everything was vegetarian, which also happened to be what I was in the mood for, and the sandwiches were very interesting.  We shared a grilled zucchini and mozzarella and a sweet potato and cheddar sandwich.  Sweet potato on a sandwich!  I have never even thought to do that.  I rushed home to tell Fuzzyhead about my sandwich epiphany.  

And of course, there were some things that could have been improved on, and I'm keeping these ideas in mind as I work with the Fair committee.  There was no bank machine on site, which caused a hiccup for the two people I was shopping with when they needed more moola and many of the vendors don't accept plastic forms of payment.  At the Fair's previous location, Bingemans, there was a bank machine on site which, I heard, regularly runs out of cash before the day is over.  At the Aud this year, there are TWO bank machines on site, and they care about keeping them full.  Hooray!  Our next committee meeting is coming up soon and I'll prepare a run-down of my thoughts and comparisons, since the only committee members who went to the Frolic were Catherine and I.

In current project news, I'm making good progress on Maeva, I'm on to the second sock, and I'm more than halfway done the foot.  I'm debating whether I should start a second project at the same time (gasp!) since I completed neglected Maeva while I worked on paulie.  The very next project for me will be my Annis shawl, and I hope I can get that one on the needles by the end of the moth.

Happy knitting,

Onward,

vrock

Blood work and black coffee

Happy Friday, dear readers!  I finished a sweater, today is a glorious day!  Let's start off with pictures of the finished specimen, and then we will dissect its inner workings and talk about the process.

Squeeeeee!  Here's paulie:

Isn't she lovely?  I'm really pleased with the colour combination and the fit.  All my swatching paid off!

It's a gloomy day outside, so I wandered around my house trying to find some reasonable light to take a few selfies.  

Look at how she nips in perfectly around the boobs, I love her already!  She still needs buttons, but as we all know, a cardigan is very wearable without buttons.

The perfect length too!

So now the knitty gritty about how paulie came to be.  The journey started with a complete ripping back of the collar and shoulder section after I misread the pattern and increased far more often than I was supposed to, right up to the end of the garter stitch section when I was going to start the stripes and get into the body of the sweater.  I ripped it back all the way to the first few rows and started again, and thankfully that was the only major setback of the whole project.

I mostly kept to the directions on the pattern, I didn't need a lot of modifications because my measurements lined up more or less with the medium size.  I added a couple extra stitches around the upper arms, and I added an extra decrease or two to the sleeves.

The shawl collar deserves its own paragraph.  I had no trouble with the length of any other section of garter stitch edging (the cuffs, the bottom of the sweater), so I went merrily along with the directions for short rows for the shawl collar.  When it was done, I completed the i-cord bind off in the contrasting colour, and everything looked lovely.  When I tried it on (before blocking), there was no way the shawl collar would fold back on itself and stay there.  It kept popping up and looking like a douchey cardigan-style popped collar.  I thought it was either that the collar itself wasn't wide enough to give enough room to fold it back, or the edging was too tight and forcing it to go against my wishes.  I toyed with the idea of ripping out the i-cord bind off and doing it again, much looser, but I figured blocking might cure what ails me.

I made sure to block the collar folded back on itself, and it sat for 3 days drying in my mud room.  Annnnnnnddddd, the result is still kind of the same, but it's smoothed out a lot more so I'm very ok with the collar staying flat.  Whatever.

Next up, selecting buttons!  I hear that Shall We Knit? has a new fancy pants button selection, so I may check them out next month when I'm in Waterloo for the Guild meeting.  My go-to place for buttons is Lens Mill, but I think paulie deserves something nice.  The official wearing of paulie has started already, so buttons or no buttons, she's now a part of my wardrobe.  Her ceremonial debut is this evening, at a friend of Fuzzyhead's birthday party in Dundas.

And I'm back to sock knitting!  Paulie was my one and only project for the last two months, and I've been neglecting Maeva.  I picked these up again on Monday night knitting at Margot's, and I've finished all of the cabling work for this first sock.  The leg of the sock is just panels of Stockinette with seed stitch columns - simple, but with a bit of interest.

I'm also itching to pick up some lace work for spring, I'm thinking Annis will get her time in the sun with my indigodragonfly singles lace.  Annis is nice and simple, and I've got her pegged for such a fun and bright colour, I'm looking forward to it.

In non-knitting news, I'm engaged to be wed to Fuzzyhead.  The facebook status update was released on Monday night, and we watched all of the "likes" come in fast and furious.  People love us. 

Happy knitting!

Onward,

vrock

Microwaved day old coffee

Hello lovelies.  I've been re-energized with knitting power in the last few weeks, and I have visions of many new projects dancing around in my head.  Let's kick things off with a re-cap:

 I made a sweet little turtle shell cape for a baby-to-be that belongs to a gal who works for my mom.  She showed my sister a picture of this baby photo prop last year and asked if she could make her one.  My sister's knitting and crochet skills are there, but she doesn't really knit much anymore, so I took it on myself to create this little beauty.  I bought the pattern on Ravelry for $6 and I made it in one afternoon.  The pattern called for Vanna's Choice acrylic yarn, which made my heart sad, but I used the same yarn anyway for the sake of new mamma being able to easily wash it.  I hear babies dribble all sorts of gross liquids in their first few months.  Gross.

 I've been teaching some knitting workshops at my museum this season, and I dragged out my project planning book to show my newbie knitters.  The page for paulie is one of the more intense entries I did for a project because I was so determined to make something right so it would actually be wearable.  I followed the guidelines from Little Red in the City for taking my measurements, and then I made two generous sized swatches to check my gauge.  I got stitch and row gauge for once in my life, and I'm a happy little camper.

 This is paulie's progress report as of this morning.  That's me, modeling in my pj's (it's my day off and I have no intentions of getting dressed, deal with it).

The body is completely finished, and I'm 3/4 of the way finished sleeve #1.  I'm constantly checking for sleeve length, which involves whipping off whatever sweater I have on so I can freeze ever so slightly for a few minutes since it's bare arm town on the other side right now.  I'll be glad when my house will be consistently above 18 degrees soon.  Come on spring!

Paulie's body, before sleeves.  Look how pretty!

I also owe you a stash update, readers.  The following yarns have been added to my collection as of September, and I only just got around to taking pictures and officially adding them to my Ravelry stash.

Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20, my draw prize for being a volunteer with the KW Knitters' Fair this year.  It's got 20% cashmere, so I'm thinking really hard about what to make with it that is worthy of the luxury.

My Christmas 2012 gift from dearest Catherine, and also my very first 'tosh, believe it or not.  The handsome rusty orange will be a fine pair of socks for either me or Fuzzyhead.

Birthday sock yarn from Catherine!  This is Miss Babs "Yummy" hand-painted sock and baby yarn, 2 ply superwash.  She ordered 2 different skeins online and let me choose the one I wanted.  I'm a sucker for greens and any natural-ish colours, so this one was a clear winner.  

I taught my first lace knitting workshop yesterday to one attendee (who knew quite a bit about lace already, despite being a brand new knitter as of December 2012), and I've been jonesing to pick up a lace project.  Here are the next two on my list:

Say hello, this is Annis.  I love her.  She will be made out of this:

My single lace from indigodragonfly that I bought at World Wide Knit in Public Day in June 2012. 

The other lovely on my list is this elegant lady:

This is Triangular Summer Shawl by Nancy Bush with a beautiful lily of the valley pattern.  I'm leaning towards this as the yarn:

I'm hesitant about the long colour change and if that will blur the pretty pattern.  I've been madly looking through the Ravelry projects for this pattern to see if anyone else used a striping yarn, and I saw one, but it wasn't the ombre style that I have with this yarn.  I'm still thinking on it some more.

That's full time for me this morning, happy Monday to you!

Onward,

vrock

Thinking jug

 Hello readers!  It's been too long, but I haven't just been sitting around, oh no!  I've been knitting my way through many of my Rhinebeck purchases, which was exactly what I wanted to do when I dropped a couple hundred dollars on yarn in one weekend in October.  The last thing I wanted was for that delicious yarn to sit around and collect dust while I lusted for new and exciting yarn.  Here's what I've been working on:

This one was a quick and simple knit, made for my hairdresser who just had a baby in December.  I searched high and low at Rhinebeck for the perfect bulky weight superwash yarn for a baby-tastic little item.  I chose a baby sack (some of you may call this a bunting bag, BORING), and she loved it.  At my last hair cut (which I had to wait 2 months for because of the previously mentioned newborn baby), she mentioned that she'd already washed it a few times (phew! it passed the washing test), and it's the perfect little thing to slip on baby Abigail when she's in her crib.  That's all a gifter/knitter wants in life, to know that my gift is enjoyed.  Ah, satisfaction.

 I also had enough yarn to knit up a quick little baby hat.  I love the wooden buttons I found, since I didn't need to actually make button holes for them.  I wrapped the whole package up in bright green tissue and wrapped a shoe box in brown craft paper and butcher twine.  I win at presents.

 I also started and finished a non-Rhinebeck item that I had my eye on for a while.  I bought 3 pillow forms from Ikea in the summer, and I finally found a reasonably priced roving-style wool for this project - I had looked everywhere at Rhinebeck, but considering I needed 4 normal skeins for one pillow, I wasn't really down with spending $80+ on a single throw pillow.  I ended up buying Bernat's Roving wool from Len's Mills Store in Cambridge, and spent a total of about $40 on the yarn for the project.  Score. 

 Quick and simple knit.  I panicked a few times during the production of the pieces about how they would fit the pillow form, but I blocked the pieces out to the correct measurements before sewing them together.

Trinity stitch pattern.

Also in the pile of non-Rhinebeck FO, please welcome Momma's Christmas socks (finished January 19).  These were made with one of the sock yarns from my indigodragonfly shopping splurge in June last year.

 Nutkin pattern, and the yarn is Merino Sock by indigodragonfly in "We gotta go to the crappy town where I'm a hero"

Back to Rhinebeck projects - hello big chunky delicious cowl!  I had my eye on a big thick cowl when I saw them featured in Vogue knitting holiday 2009, and while I originally bought this yarn to make the baby sack above, I decided on a cowl for me because of the 60/40 alpaca/wool blend. 

 Fun fact: the yarn I bought did not have a dye lot, and one of the skeins definitely had more of grey-speckle going on, while the other one had lighter yellow and white splotches.  I decided to alternate each skein every row throughout the piece to evenly distribute the variety of non-yellow colours.  It was a mild pain in the ass to juggle two balls of yarn at the same time, but I'm very happy with the result.

 Horseshoe cable (made without a cable needle), twisted rib, and bobbles of knit stitches on patches of purling.

 Hello pretty!  Wearing a coat and cowl in my kitchen.

First socks from the Rhinebeck stash:

 This is Maeva, knit in The Periwinkle Sheep, Oh So Fine! sock yarn in "Memories of Summer".  From the lovelies at The Periwinkle Sheep, I really wanted to buy their "Rhinebeck 2012" yarn, but I hesitated on day 1 and when I came back on day 2, they were all out.  Sad face.

And finally, my pride and joy, my new baby, my 2013 sweater: paulie.  He doesn't look like much yet, but he will be glorious.  I'm swatching like a mad woman to make sure I have the right gauge, and then I'll be blocking everything and hanging it to test for gravity-effectedness.  No one wants a saggy sweater.  Paulie will be my go-to work cardigan to wear over my uniform.  And then for once, when someone knows I'm a knitter and asks if I made my sweater, I can say YES.  It will be a great day.

This is Blue Moon Fiber Arts, BFL Sport in "Manly yes, but I like it too", which will be joined by his contrasting colour friend "Tumbleweed".

 In knitting-related news, I'm officially a professional knitting instructor.  The programming coordinator at my museum learned that I was an avid knitter, and asked me to put together some knitting workshops to teach in the winter.  I suggested 7 different workshops that I would be comfortable teaching, and she agreed to all of them.  You can find the full schedule and pricing for the upcoming workshops here, just scroll through and look for anything with "Knitting" in the title.  I've already taught my very first class, Knitting 101 (shout out to my two brand new knitters!), and I'm looking forward to the next few months of teaching.  My upcoming workshops, in order, include Knitting 102 (the "next steps" class after Knitting 101), Learn to Knit for Kids, Knitting Lace, Knitting Cables, Colourwork Knitting, and Knitting Socks.  If you know a knitter who wants to learn a new skill, send them my way.

I'm off for the day now, readers, happy knitting!

Onward, 

vrock

A journey to Rhinebeck, and back again

As promised, my lovely readers, here comes the massive Rhinebeck update!

Our day began at the crack of dawn in Georgetown to meet our bus group for the first time.  We met at a coffee shop to sign in, fork over some cash, and get a hot beverage.

Breakfast of champions, plus gift bags for the housekeeping staff at the hotel.  I did not include the picture of Catherine at this early hour, where she was secretly hating me but putting on a good face.

Before we even got to the border, Catherine discovered a the perfect hole in the seat in front of her for storing a pen. 

Our bus ride on the way there was about 10 hours, but really only about 7 of actual driving time.  We were tuckered out on Friday night, and after getting super scammed by the local taxi services for a ride to the mall and back, we hit the hay to rest up for a full day of fun.  This is the site that greeted us on Saturday morning, look at all those knitters!

The very official sign that tells you I was actually there.

I took SOOOO many pictures of sheep.  All the animals were lined up in pens, and I had no idea there were so many different kinds of sheep. 

This one might be my favourite.

Don't forget about llamas!  The llamas and alpacas were regularly paraded around the fair grounds for touching and photo ops.

This little monster was at the Good Karma Farms booth, one of the first places I saw on Saturday.  When I came back on Sunday to make a purchase, this guy was already sold. 

Llama llama llama

Inside one of the vendor buildings.  SO many people!

Sheep dog demonstrations!  That'll do, pig.

On Saturday night after we got back to the hotel, we held a show and tell in the hallway.  Everyone unfolded their ironing board in the hallway and set up a display table.  This is our haul from day one.  Catherine's stuff is on the left, and my two humble packages are on the right.

Future sweater yarn.

Just because I like it sock yarn.

Other knitters with their treasures.

Day two was a lot more buying from me - we made a run-around plan based on all the things we saw on Saturday, so I knew exactly which shops to go back to.  We were only at the fair on Sunday for 2 hours, and I spent most of my money in less than an hour.

We didn't see this sign until we were on the bus leaving on Sunday, but this is where we were!

And now, the official stash additions that I brought home from my adventures at Rhinebeck 2012:

The Periwinkle Sheep, Oh so fine! sock yarn in "Memories of Summer"

BitsyKnits Sock82Me in "Fawn"

BitsyKnits Sock82Me in "Bronze"

Good Karma Farm 60/40 Wool/Alpaca in "Chicken Beak"

Sliver Moon Farm bulky wool in "Fern"

Cephalopod Yarns, Skinny Bugga in "Green Darner Dragonfly"

Blue Moon Fiber Arts, BFL Sport in "Manly yes, but I like it too!"

Blue Moon Fiber Arts, BFL Sport in "Tumbleweed"

My Cephalopod sock yarn next to the pretty bag it came in

My new project bag from go Monkey Design.

I've already updated my Ravelry queue with a few must-start projects since I've got knitting on the brain now and I've got that itch to start something new.  First up will be the baby bunting bag with the Sliver Moon bulky green yarn, and I chose a different pattern from the one I originally posted about.  I was looking at the specs for that one and realized the pattern called for more fingering weight yarn than it would take to make a sweater for an adult.  Yeah, no.  New pattern is a simple baby sack with some ribbing at the top.  Looks simple and cute, and it will be a fast project (instant gratification!).  My new sweater will likely be a project for after Christmas - let the swatching begin!

Onward,

vrock